Restoring an old airplane is the same proposition for the kind of craftsman who is honest with himself. The work itself is the reward. Standing in a quiet shop on a Saturday morning with a piece of spruce in one hand and a glue brush in the other, fitting a new wing rib into a fixture that has not held a wing rib in eighty years, is its own kind of payment.

Mustang Field, four miles south of El Reno, Oklahoma. The year is 1943. Young men are learning to fly the Fairchild PT-19 — open cockpit, wood-winged, beautiful and demanding — over the flat prairie of Canadian County.They didn’t just materialize. Somebody had to get them there. And this, it turns out, is one of the most fascinating stories we get to tell here at The Caldwell Collection.

For many antique aviation aficionados, hearing that an airplane has been acquired by a museum is a sad event. We know that in a very literal sense, that airplane has gone somewhere to die. It will become a static display — slowly decaying beneath its shiny paint, its capabilities eroding until one day it will be impossible for it ever to take flight again. At the Caldwell Collection, we believe our aircraft should come here not to die, but to fly.

Mustang Field, four miles south of El Reno, Oklahoma. The year is 1943. Young men are learning to fly the Fairchild PT-19 — open cockpit, wood-winged, beautiful and demanding — over the flat prairie of Canadian County.They didn’t just materialize. Somebody had to get them there. And this, it turns out, is one of the most fascinating stories we get to tell here at The Caldwell Collection.

But that wasn't my last encounter with Marla or her biplane. The very next year, sitting in my hotel room, bored, in advance of a business meeting, I was scrolling through the Barnstormer ads when her name jumped off the page. The UPF 7 was for sale again!

My first Waco, a UMF 3, was restored by the amazing craftsman Dave Allen from Coronado, California. I've written about him here before. There was another amazing restorer who, though much better known in the Waco community and antique aviation in general, always referred to himself as the "other" Dave Allen.

If I go back to the beginning of all of this, I just wanted to be able to put one airplane with big wheels on grass...

The new Caldwell Collection at Mustang Field purchased another airplane this week, a "Rhinehart- Rose" named "Easter Rose" as it first...

Learn more about the hangar being restored to house The Caldwell Collection. It's rich past, present conditions, and future vision!

Recently, I wrote an article about some things I think antique airplane buyers ought to consider when setting a price and selling a plane. I think turnabout is fair play, and here are some thoughts on how to be a great buyer and someone a seller of a treasured antique airplane ought to want to sell to.